Why Do Footballers Dive?

According to the conventional wisdom, when compared to other sportsmen. footballers are cowardly weaklings. Is this true? I'm currently in the US, and most Amercians point out the proclivity of footballers to rolling around in feigned agony at slightest physical contact as one reason why they don't think the sport will ever replace or supplant American's home grown sports. This is called diving. In England, the diving phenomenon is usually blamed upon foreign players. But anyone who watches footballer regularly knows that Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard are guilty of this sin all the time, while Emile Heskey spends most games falling over. The question is: Is there a rational choice explanation of diving?  Why do footballers dive more than other sportsmen?

Consider the problem from the point of view of the fans. Everyone condemns diving. But is it true that fans almost condemn diving? Well for the most part they do but consider the exceptions. Few if any England fans complained when Michael Owen dubiously won a penalty in the Argentina game in 1998. The same would be true if a player dived in order to get your team through to the final of the Champions League. We understand why a player would try to get a penalty in this siutation. The reason (and perhaps it is obvious) is that the stakes are so high that it makes sense to dive. 

Players weigh the costs of diving - the small chance of getting a yellow card and the more greater risk of opprobrium from neutrals and the media verses the potential benefits - winning a vital penalty or free kick which will go some way to securing a important result. They may also consider the dynamic costs of diving i.e. the impact it has on their reputation. A player can dive too much. If a Cristiano Ronaldo or Didlier Drogba gets a reputation as a 'diver' this may actually reduce his ability to win decisions in favour of his team. 

This framework predicts 

1. Players dive more in the penalty box than they do outside it (again I think this is obvious and seems confirmed by casual empiricism). 
2. Diving should be more frequent when the stakes are high.  This explains why diving has become more frequent as the financial stakes have gone up since the early 1990s.
3. Diving may be more prevalent in international or European games where the domestic media is less likely to condemn the practice.

So why do footballers dive?  In other sports, a single refereeing decision has much less weight than in football.  The potential benefits to fooling the referee in rugby or other sports are therefore much lower whereas the costs are roughly equivalent. Football is low scoring. A single goal often settles the result. Given the stakes, it is understandable that footballers dive.

How might the football authorities reduce the amount of diving in the game?  The economist's answer would be to change the incentives structure.  It has little or nothing to do with fundamentals such as the type of people who play football or which country they are from.  Most of the debate however focuses on the culture of the game. I don't discount this entirely.  I think social norms mediate the amount of diving that goes on but they do so indirectly by determining the cost a player caught diving bears. But I don't think we can change these social norms unless we change the game. The diving culture is simply a product of the stakes riding on each game combined with the decisive role refereeing decisions play in deciding tight games.

Comments

[Jonny Newton]

Not to mention the benefit from getting opposing players booked. Refereeing changes in the 90s which advised mandatory yellow cards for certain offenses thus help to explain increased diving.

Don't you think you might be exaggerating the importance of the tight scoreline? After all, if we look at the most common fouls in rugby they are ones where it is quite difficult to fool the referee. Pretending that an opponents pass went forward, or that he was offside, or that he collapsed the scrum are pretty difficult to fake.

[Niko Morse]

Why not look at other sports that have dealt with diving and drastically reduced it. Look at Ice Hockey for instance. If a player dives and a ref catches him doing it its an automatic penalty, repeating offenders get booted. I personally feel that if diving were eliminated from football, I would be a huge fan of the sport. I know how much skill and teamwork goes into it but the hockey player in me has to laugh any time I see a flagrant dive.